Monday, March 7, 2011

How Heirlooms Lead to Curiosity (and Maybe a Title-could i be an H.R.H.?)

once again on Sunday, while sorting through years of "things" at my parents (and after a less than wonderful second trip to the attic), i found some really great stuff. which lead to finding some other stuff, and on, and on. i then went to ancestry.com (and thus far a 14 day trial) to see what i could dig up. i still haven't found what i was looking for (the year my Great Grandparent's were married), but i found lots of other things, and am now addicted to researching the branches of my family.

this old vase has been in the cabinet above the washer for years and years. my mom said it belonged to Grandma Snyder, whom i never knew.

which led her to remarking about an old Nippon dish that had been given to her (Grandma Caroline Mae Conrad Snyder) when she married my Great Grandpa (Oliver Orlando Snyder-i wish i had been named Orlando). we were trying to date the dish...but couldn't figure out when they were married (nor could my Grandma).

it really is rather pretty. Nippon was sort of a generic term used to reference hand painted china from Japan sold by the Nippon Toki Kaisha, Ltd. company, which became (officially) the Noritake Co., Limited in 1981.

then we looked for and found a bunch of xeroxed letters and papers from the Snyder side of the family (which really only helped me back up the family tree i was creating).

such amazing penmanship is HARD to read!

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to make everything out.

so then i got busy on ancestor.com...and scribbled lots of notes. at one point i switched over to the Gallaway side of the family, and followed it back, and back, and back....

and back, and back to this strange name-Malise Graham (i thought his wife, Janet DeRochfort seemed like she would be the aristocrat) who was the 1st Earl of Menteith (1406-1490...i said i went quite far back). it turned out that his great-great-grandfather was someone named....

Robert II Stewart, who, it turns out, is Robert II of Scotland, the first monarch of the House of Stewart (later Stuart) who ruled Scotland, and later England (after the Tudor dynasty became extinct at the death of Elizabeth I in 1603).

i think this is a pretty good likeness of me with a beard. now i know there are thousands of other people who can trace there lineage back to this guy...but it's still pretty fun to find out. does this mean i'm waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down on the Line of Succession?